Category Archives: News

News

Do teacher unions care about providing high quality education?

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Story from Big Government. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In case you haven’t heard, the state of Hawaii, facing the same type of budget crunch as other state governments, has to cut more than $400 million from its education budget over the next two years. Logically, that would lead to some teacher layoffs in a number of school districts.

But the Hawaii State Teachers Association has a better idea. It wants to adopt a four-day school week, with unpaid “furlough Fridays,” to avoid any layoffs. In other words, the teachers are willing to sacrifice one-fifth of their students’ education to keep the paychecks rolling in.

The idea is apparently catching on in other states, as well.

The union’s perogative of “no lay-offs” is clearly self-serving.  Our organization, Education Action Group Foundation, which is based in Michigan, has estimated that 2,500 school layoffs in Michigan equals about a $1 million hit to the Michigan Education Association in terms of dues.  When a state is talking about significantly more than that, one can see why the union doesn’t want layoffs.

The union needs those dues to help elect Democrats, who will then turn around and block competition from homeschoolers and private schools. This way, parents are powerless to choose a better way to have their children educated the way they choose.

News

Why the Democrats won’t reform medical malpractice laws

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In the USA, doctors are sued all the time by patients for “medical malpractice”. Sometimes the lawsuits have merit and sometimes they don’t. But because the payoffs are so high, plaintiffs have every reason to sue. Doctors must carry expensive insurance against frivolous lawsuits, and they also perform many unnecessary tests and procedures to reduce their exposure to potential lawsuits. This raises the cost of health care.

Consider this Wall Street Journal article.

Excerpt:

Eliminating defensive medicine could save upwards of $200 billion in health-care costs annually, according to estimates by the American Medical Association and others. The cure is a reliable medical malpractice system that patients, doctors and the general public can trust.

But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That’s because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.

Consider how this affects obstetricians:

Former [Democrat] Sen. John Edwards, for example, made a fortune bringing 16 cases against hospitals for babies born with cerebral palsy. Each of those tragic cases was worth millions in settlement. But according to a 2006 study at the National Institutes of Health, in nine out of 10 cases of cerebral palsy nothing done by a doctor could have caused the condition.

Unreliable justice is like pouring acid over the culture of health care. One in 10 obstetricians have stopped delivering babies, unable to pay malpractice premiums on the order of $1,000 per baby, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Some hospitals, including Methodist Hospital and Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia, have stopped delivering babies altogether; and the number of unnecessary caesarian sections have increased to the detriment of the health of mothers, according to the ACOG.

Read the whole thing.

Unfortunately for us, some trial lawyers pay a lot of money to Democrats to make sure that their activities will not be curtailed by legislation. And the Democrats dance to their tune. I cannot for the life of me figure out why doctors continue to provide medical care to these medical malpractice lawyers.

News

Action required: Petition to restore freedom of speech in Canada

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Sent to me by Blazing Cat Fur and Andrew.

As you know, freedom of speech is an essential characteristic of a free society. In Canada, however, this freedom has been under attack in recent years under the pretext of protecting and promoting human rights. Laws that prohibit the free expression of opinion undermine the very foundations of a free and tolerant society and are, therefore, illegitimate and must be abolished.

http://www.policystudies.ca/ has just launched an online petition calling on lawmakers at all levels of government in Canada examine legislation within their jurisdiction intended to protect and promote human rights, and to remove those provisions that prohibit or otherwise limit the free and sincere expression of opinion.

Please take a minute to sign this petition yourself and email it to your friends and family for their signature as well. You can do so now by clicking on the following link or by cutting and pasting the url into your browser.You can also post the link to social networking sites like facebook or in any forum you regularly visit.

Let’s see how many signatures we can gather on this important issue.

Defend Free Speech
We the undersigned call on lawmakers at all levels of government in Canada to:

A) Examine all legislation within their jurisdiction intended to protect and promote human rights, and

B) To amend said legislation to remove those provisions that prohibit or otherwise limit the free and sincere expression of opinion.